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What's sad is that the great neighborhood bookstores never manage to own their spaces. That was just as true 40 years ago (when my favorite in a retired old-fas

What's sad is that the great neighborhood bookstores never manage to own their spaces. That was just as true 40 years ago (when my favorite in a retired old-fashioned brick firestation went under.) I'm probably wrong (never talked to an insider) but owning just doesn't seem to be in the DNA of the store owners to go for that. A shame for them, and for the fate of the thousands of books that make them special in the first place.

chrisseaton 8y ago
Wouldn’t owning their real estate in New York require access to tens of millions of dollars in cash? Where is a bookshop owner going to get that? It sounds more like a practical barrier to doing that rather than a choice thing in their ‘DNA’.
- lkrubner 8y ago
  "tens of millions of dollars in cash" You're replying to someone who wrote "40 years ago." Real estate in New York was cheap, back in the 1970s and early 1980s. I have friends who bought their brownstone in Brooklyn for $200,000, which is now worth $2 million. If you were lucky enough to buy real estate in New York in the early 1980s, it was among the best investments possible. For awhile I lived in a 4 story building in Brooklyn, just across from the Navy Yard. It had 14 apartments in it. It was owned by a Hasidic Jew, who I got to know pretty well. He told me he bought it in 1982 for $300,000. I'd guess it is now worth $3 or $4 million. I realize that the national story is different from the New York story, but those bookstores could have bought their buildings, when real estate values crashed, back at the end of the 1960s.
  - cm2012 8y ago
    If you invested $300k in the Dow in 1982, it would be worth $8,700,000 today, for reference.
    - rz2k 8y ago
      40 years of collecting rent, or alternately deriving utility from living there is a significant part of the return on top of the increase in market price.
gwbas1c 8y ago
Running a business is about cash flow.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Yes, and if you have a landlord then the cash will always end up flowing in their direction.
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  If you own the building, the cash flows right where you want it. Until then, you're a turtle without a shell.

chrisseaton 8y ago

Wouldn’t owning their real estate in New York require access to tens of millions of dollars in cash? Where is a bookshop owner going to get that? It sounds more like a practical barrier to doing that rather than a choice thing in their ‘DNA’.

lkrubner 8y ago
"tens of millions of dollars in cash" You're replying to someone who wrote "40 years ago." Real estate in New York was cheap, back in the 1970s and early 1980s. I have friends who bought their brownstone in Brooklyn for $200,000, which is now worth $2 million. If you were lucky enough to buy real estate in New York in the early 1980s, it was among the best investments possible. For awhile I lived in a 4 story building in Brooklyn, just across from the Navy Yard. It had 14 apartments in it. It was owned by a Hasidic Jew, who I got to know pretty well. He told me he bought it in 1982 for $300,000. I'd guess it is now worth $3 or $4 million. I realize that the national story is different from the New York story, but those bookstores could have bought their buildings, when real estate values crashed, back at the end of the 1960s.
- cm2012 8y ago
  If you invested $300k in the Dow in 1982, it would be worth $8,700,000 today, for reference.
  - rz2k 8y ago
    40 years of collecting rent, or alternately deriving utility from living there is a significant part of the return on top of the increase in market price.

gwbas1c 8y ago

Running a business is about cash flow.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Yes, and if you have a landlord then the cash will always end up flowing in their direction.
8bitsrule 8y ago
If you own the building, the cash flows right where you want it. Until then, you're a turtle without a shell.